We ride all day and all night, and ascend and descend some of the most frightful hills I ever saw. We make Johnson's Pass, which is 6,752 feet high, about two o'clock in the morning, and go down the great Kingsbury grade with locked wheels. The driver, with whom I sit outside, informs me, as we slowly roll down this fearful mountain road, which looks down on either side into an appalling ravine, that he has met accidents in his time, and cost the California Stage Company a great deal of money; "because," he says, "juries is agin us on principle, and every man who sues us is sure to recover. But it will never be so agin, not with me, you bet." 66 How is that?" I said. It was frightfully dark. It was snowing withal, and notwithstanding the brakes were kept hard down, the coach slewed wildly, often fairly touching the brink of the black precipice. "How is that?" I said. "Why, you see," he replied, "that corpses never sue for damages, but maimed people do. And the next time I have a overturn I shall go round and keerfully examine the passengers. Them as is dead I shall let alone; but them as is mutilated I shall finish with the king-bolt! Dead folks don't sue. They ain't on it." Thus with anecdote did this driver cheer me up. V.-WASHOE. WE reach Carson City about nine o'clock in the morning. It is the capital of the Silver-producing territory of Nevada. They shoot folks here somewhat, and the law is rather partial than otherwise to first-class murderers. I visited the territorial Prison, and the Warden points out the prominent convicts to me, thus: "This man's crime was horse-stealing. He is here for life. "This man is in for murder. He is here for three years." But shooting isn't as popular in Nevada as it once was. A few years since they used to have a dead man for breakfast every morning. A reformed desperado told me that he supposed he had killed men enough to stock a grave-yard. "A feeling of remorse,' he said, "sometimes comes over me! But I'm an altered man دو now. I hain't killed a man for over two weeks! What'll yer poison yourself with?" he added, dealing a resonant blow on the bar. There used to live near Carson City a notorious desperado, who never visited town without killing somebody. He would call for liquor at some drinking-house, and if anybody declined joining him he would at once commence shooting. But one day he shot a man too many. Going into the St. Nicholas drinking-house he asked the company present to join him in a North-American drink. One individual was rash enough to refuse. With a look of sorrow rather than of anger the desperado revealed his revolver, and said "Good God! Must I kill a man every time I come to Carson ?". and so saying he fired and killed the individual on the spot. But this was the last murder the bloodthirsty miscreant ever committed, for the aroused citzens pursued him with rifles and shot him down in his own door-yard. I lecture in the theatre at Carson, which opens out of a drinking and gambling house. On each side of the door where my tickettaker stands there are montè-boards and sweat cloths, but they are deserted to-night, the gamblers being evidently of a literary turn. of mind. Five years ago there was only a pony-path over the precipitous hills on which now stands the marvellous city of Virginia, with its population of twelve thousand persons, and perhaps more. Virginia, with its stately warehouses and gay shops; its splendid streets, paved with silver ore; its banking houses and faro-banks; its attractive coffee-houses and elegant theatre; its music-halls, and its three daily newspapers. Virginia is very wild, but I believe it is now pretty generally believed that a mining city must go through with a certain amount of unadulterated cussedness before it can settle down and behave itself in a conservative and seemly manner. Virginia has grown up in the heart of the richest silver regions in the world, the El Dorado of the hour; and of the immense numbers who are swarming thither not more than half carry their mother's Bible or any settled religion with them. The gambler and the strange woman as naturally seek the new sensational town as ducks take to that element which is so useful for making cocktails and bathing one's feet; and these people make the new town rather warm for awhile. But by-and-by the earnest and honest citizens get tired of this ungodly nonsense and organise a Vigilance Committee, which hangs the more vicious of the pestiferous crowd to a sour apple-tree; and then come good municipal laws, ministers, meeting-houses, and a tolerably sober police in blue coats with brass buttons. About five thousand able-bodied men are in the mines underground, here; some as far down as five hundred feet. The Gould and Curry Mine employs nine hundred men, and annually turns out about twenty million dollars' worth of "demnition gold and silver," as Mr. Mantalini might express it—though silver chiefly. There are many other mines here and at Gold Hill (another startling silver city, a mile from here), all of which do nearly as well. The silver is melted down into bricks of the size of common house bricks; then it is loaded into huge wagons, each drawn by eight and twelve mules, and sent off to San Francisco. To a young person fresh from the land of greenbacks this careless manner of carting off solid silver is rather of a startler. It is related that a young man who came Overland from New Hampshire a few months before my arrival became so excited about it that he fell in a fit, with the name of his Uncle Amos on his lips! The hardy miners supposed he wanted his uncle there to see the great sight, and faint with him. But this was pure conjecture, after all. I visit several of the adjacent mining towns, but I do not go to Aurora. No, I think not. A lecturer on psychology was killed there the other night by the playful discharge of a horse-pistol in the hands of a degenerated and intoxicated Spaniard. This circumstance, and a rumour that the citizens are agin literature, induce me to go back to Virginia. I had pointed out to me at a Restaurant a man who had killed four men in street broils, and who had that very day cut his own brother's breast open in a dangerous manner with a small supper knife. He was a gentleman, however. I heard him tell some men SO. He admitted it himself. And I don't think he would lie about a little thing like that. The theatre at Virginia will attract the attention of the stranger, because it is an unusually elegant affair of the kind, and would be so regarded anywhere. It was built, of course, by Mr. Thomas Maguire, the Napoleonic manager of the Pacific, and who has built over twenty theatres in his time, and will perhaps build as many more, unless somebody stops him-which, by the way, will not be a remarkably easy thing to do. As soon as a mining camp begins to assume the proportions of a city; at about the time the whisky-vendor draws his cork or the gambler spreads his green cloth, Maguire opens a theatre, and with a hastily-organised "Vigilance Committee" of actors, commences to execute Shakespeare. VI.-MR. PEPPER. My arrival at Virginia City was signalised by the following incident: I had no sooner achieved my room in the garret of the International Hotel than I was called upon by an intoxicated man, who said he was an Editor. Knowing how rare it was for an Editor to be under the blighting influence of either spirituous or malt liquors, I received this statement doubtfully. But I said,— "What name?" "Wait!" he said, and went out. I heard him pacing unsteadily up and down the hall outside. In ten minutes he returned, and said: "Pepper!" Pepper was indeed his name. He had been out to see if he could remember it; and he was so flushed with his success that he repeated it joyously several times, and then, with a short laugh, he went away. I have often heard of a man being "so drunk that he didn't know what town he lived in," but here was a man so hideously inebriated that he didn't know what his name was. I saw him no more, but I heard from him. For he published a notice of my lecture, in which he said I had a dissipated air. VII. -HORACE GREELEY'S RIDE TO PLACERVILLE. WHEN Mr. Greeley was in California ovations awaited him at every town. He had written powerful leaders in the Tribune in favor of the Pacific Railroad, which had greatly endeared him to the citizens of the Golden State. And therefore they made much of him when he went to see them. At one town the enthusiastic populace tore his celebrated white coat to pieces, and carried the pieces home to remember him by. The citizens of Placerville prepared to fête the great journalist, and an extra coach, with extra relays of horses, was chartered of the California Stage Company to carry him from Folsom to Placerville-distance, forty miles. The extra was in some way delayed, and did not leave Folsom until late in the afternoon. Mr. Greeley was to be fêted at 7 o'clock that evening by the citizens of Placerville, and it was altogether necessary that he should be there by that hour. So the Stage Company said to Henry Monk, the driver of the extra," Henry, this great man must be there by 7 to-night." And Henry answered, "The great man shall be there." The roads were in an awful state, and during the first few miles out of Folsom slow progress was made. "Sir," said Mr. Greeley, 66 are you aware that I must be at Placerville at 7 o'clock to-night ?" "I've got my orders!" laconically returned Henry Monk. Still the coach dragged slowly forward. "Sir," said Mr. Greeley, "this is not a trifling matter. be there at 7!" Again came the answer, "I've got my orders!" I must But the speed was not increased, and Mr. Greeley chafed away another half hour; when, as he was again about to remonstrate with the driver, the horses suddenly started into a furious run, and all sorts of encouraging yells filled the air from the throat of Henry Monk. "That is right, my good fellow !" cried Mr. Greeley. "I'll give you ten dollars when we get to Placerville. Now we are going!" aír. They were indeed, and at a terrible speed. Crack, crack! went the whip, and again "that voice" split the "Git up! Hi yi! G'long! Yip—yip!" |